De Gaulle was scheduled to make a grand speech after Eisenhower's D-day broadcast. When he found out he was not to be mentioned in Eisenhower's speech, he threw a larger than usual sulk and withdrew his 200 liaison officers for the invasion, causing Churchill to blow all his gaskets. (Just like the SNCF, where a few mechanics can stop all of Paris from working by throwing a tantrum whenever they fancy.) He later relented when it became clear he would not be able to strut down the Champs Elysees if D-day failed.

It was a team effort guys. America supplied the lend-lease gear, the Poles helped the Brits crack Enigma, the Commonwealth held the line wherever it could, the Soviets charged machine guns until the Nazis ran out of bullets, and the French took all the credit.

The Americans indeed won the war on all fronts for us all. Their lend-lease programme supplied Great Britain, the Soviet Union, China, France and a host of Allied nations with vast amounts of military hardwares, trillions of dollars worth, was the decisive factor but we mustn't forget that their fighting generals such as George C. Patton, Omar N. Bradley, Courtney H. Hodges, Mark W. Clark, Lucian K. Truscott, Alexander M. Patch, Jacob L. Devers, Douglas MacArthur were magnificent.

The Economist is right to focus on Beevor's ability to reassess the war with the luxury of generational, and thus emotional, distance. I am an Englishman who has learned to love Germany and German culture, and I have always been struck by my inability to force my father, who fought in WW2, into any acknowledgement of the horrors of the area bombing campaign, and I know I shall never succeed in this. History must always be revised and revised again, in a spirit of honest inquiry and reconciliation. It is precisely for this reason that the current Russian government's attempts to sustain the first-generation Soviet version of the period's history are so pernicious, perpetuating the myth of the USSR's innocence and Stalin's wisdom, and the resentments of its victims in central and eastern Europe. The truth, as ever, shall set you free.

Your argument that the European theatre was won by the Soviets is well-understood, but to argue that the Pacific war was won by the USSR as well is idiotic to say the least.

Tell me, how is Japan 'loosing' so many of her soldiers in China have anything to do with Moscow? And Japan's true challenge came not when her army encountered Chinese troops who used boulders to waylay tanks, but when it faced a far greater industrial and military might in the United States. The Americans deserve their plaudits for winning the war against Japan.

I look forward to reading Beevor's book since I always learn new things from him. As I read the other comments I grow fascinated with the opinions expressed. One can say that the war in Europe was won with Russian blood, American steel, and British pluck. Yes, the center of gravity was the Eastern Front but it took the concerted efforts of the USA, the British Empire and the Soviet Union to bring the Nazis down. Stalin's forces were immeasurably aided by the Allied bombing campaign which forced the Nazis to shift from producing artillery pieces, tanks, and bombers to building anti-aircraft guns and fighters. The Luftwaffe was forced to withdraw many squadrons from Russia to combat the Anglo-American bombing offensive. Lend Lease supplies put Stalin's army on wheels, supplied it with food, uniforms, and raw materials. Yes, the blood was Soviet, but the wherewithal was American. Once the campaign against the U-boats was won and the Mediterranean Basin liberated supplies flowed into the Soviet Union in greater numbers than before. Again, it took the concerted efforts of all three powers to bring down Hitler and his gang.
The victory in the Pacific was an American effort--the Soviet effort was minimal but exactly what was negotiated at Yalta. The US armed forces destroyed the Japanese Empire. Keeping China in the war tied down 1.2 million Japanese troops. By July 1945, the 14th Army had destroyed the Japanese in Burma and were preparing to invade Malaya. The Australians were advancing into the Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia) while the United States was planning for an invasion of Kyushu in November 1945. The end came suddenly. First the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, then the Russian invasion of Manchuria, and finally the 2nd atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki. If the Japanese had not sued for peace they would have been blockaded, starved to death and invaded. That summer the US Navy was cruising off the Japanese coast, shutting down inter-coastal shipping and destroying rail lines. The Japanese face annihilation. Surrender was the only option and finally the Emperor intervened to force that decision.

WW II or the Great Patriotic War was never about Western Europe. It was about and fought in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Hitler's aim was to destroy communism and the untermensch; to kill one-third, enslave one-third and drive the remaining third behind the Urals.
Not to denigrate those who fought and died on the western front but it was a side show in terms of numbers and effort compared to the eastern front. Regardless of what you were taught in school.

A cryptic message from a German helped turn the tide of war against Germany. Richard Sorge, the greatest double agent and most effective German/Russian spy was Tokyo correspondent for the Frankfurter Zeitung. His crucial message to Stalin on October 1941, that the Japanese did not regard themselves bound by the terms of the Tripartite Pact (with Germany and Italy) and under no circumstances will Japan denounce their non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union therefore making it clear that there would be no Japanese attack on the Soviet Union’s Far East, got Stalin to feel safe and took the gamble and stripped his Far Eastern border of all troops and transported eighty divisions, a million highly trained and well equipped soldiers with brand new T-34 tanks (a machine more powerful than anything the Germans could muster) to the West to defend Moscow. Four years later, financed by the U.S., the Soviet Union's Manchurian Strategic Offensive was launched on August 9, 1945 three days after Hiroshima and just hours before Nagasaki, having only declared war on Empire of Japan on August 8. The Soviet Union cleverly fought a war that was already won.

It is healthy that after 60 plus years, the more egregious acts of the Allies are finally being reported. From the bombing of civilians to the summary executions (General Leclerc executing teenage Grossdeutchland prisoners because they angered him) and revenge killings to the rape and pillage of liberated areas. It sums up conventional wisdom that in War there are no victors. Isn't it time to edit all those rosy accounts of the war, written in voluminous pictorial books by the American Heritage, Life and Reader's Digest etc?

Both the European theatre and Pacific theatre were won by the Soviet Union. This does not demean the contributions made by the Anglo forces, nor diminish the sacrifices made by their personnel. However, Hitler needed most of his forces on the Eastern Front to hold back Stalin's killing machine. And, Japan surrendered shortly after Russia entered the war after loosing so many of her troops in China - so easily to the Soviet Union.

The German army in WWII was more professional than the Yanks
in France, but Hitler was the Allies best friend,
having sacrificed 80% of his Nazi forces in Soviet Russia.
Without the Russian Army, many more casualties would have occured
on the Western front, despite overwhelming arms, planes,
ammo, food, oil, etc. possessed by US forces.
Battles are never really between equal forces.